Bulb sockets are apparatuses for supporting a bulb as well as open apertures for supplying electricity to the bulb. Such bulb sockets are classified into Edison type bulb sockets into which a bulb is screwed, and Swan type bulb sockets into which a bulb is pushed, depending on methods of locating a bulb in a socket.
The Edison type bulb sockets are applied to domestic electric apparatuses, and the Swan type bulb sockets are applied to automobiles and other electric apparatuses.
Specifically, the Swan type bulb sockets have a complex and accurate configuration, thus careful attention is required in manufacture and manufacturing costs are higher in comparison with the Edison type bulb sockets.
Referring to FIG. 1, such a swan type bulb socket includes a housing 100 into which a bulb is inserted and fixed, and various contact terminals and wires in the housing 100. The housing 100 includes a front piece 101 formed using a front mold assembly and a rear piece 102 formed using a rear mold assembly. A seal 103 is disposed in a coupling portion of the front and the rear pieces 101 and 102 to provide sealing performance.
Since the socket with the aforementioned configuration requires spot-welding for coupling the contact terminals, a welder and a welding line is also provided.
Since the housing 100 of the bulb socket includes the pieces 101 and 102, automatic pressing cannot be performed on the pieces 101 and 102, thus increase pressing costs. Also, a manufacturing process for the bulb socket is complicated and manufacturing costs are relatively high.
Referring to FIG. 2, a related art bulb socket 200, which is an epoxy type bulb socket, includes a socket piece 201 and an epoxy-flow-prevention piece 202. Thus, an automatic epoxy dispenser and a chamber for curing epoxy are required.
Also, the bulb socket 200 requires a separate dedicated line for injecting and curing the epoxy after connecting wires, thus a manufacturing process is complicated and manufacturing costs are relatively high.